Top 5 Android Games of the Week 9-16 December 2012: Broken Sword II, Modern Combat 4 and More

This is one of the weeks with most interesting releases of games this year, with two hot titles launched over the past days. Everyone looked forward to the debut of Broken Sword II and now it’s here, while Modern Combat 4 has got to be the most exciting release of the season. We’ve also got an original new game among our top 5, a game that we’ve actually reviewed for you, plus a sports simulator.

I must admit I haven’t heard about Super Falling Fred, till our editor Alex reviewed it. This title is part of a series that has the character Fred at its center and he’s either falling in an abyss or running from danger. This time he’s “super falling”, for hundreds of meters, with many traps in his way, ranging from spikes, to razors, sharp edges, spinning fans with sharp blades and many more. The idea is to fall further and not get hit, so you can actually reach the crazier traps and find a sadistic end to the character’s life. Super Falling Fred may become a bit repetitive over time, but thanks to parody characters that mock Justin Bieber and the Twilight guy, you can torment the people you hate most.

This week Angry Birds, the original 1.0 release celebrated 3 years of life and with it came a special release of levels for the original collection of levels. That one reached version 3.0.0, and got 30 new levels, that are based on cakes and party hats. Pudding and cream is all over the levels and the Pink Bird is also here, as a selectable character. There’s also the exploding black bird and the little yellow bird, that blows up to huge size. The 30 new levels are actually divided into two areas: one is themed Birdday Party and other is based on Bad Piggies. TNT cake is also included and the game is available for free, so go right ahead and download it from the Play Store.

If you’re the OCD control freak who likes to keep a football team in check using strategy and good management, then Football Manager Handheld 2013 is for you. The game is available for $9.99 and offers a lot of leagues, including Australia, Brazil, Portugal, Wales and much more. Northern Ireland and Ireland are fresh additions to this release. The stats are up to date for the 2012 and 2013 seasons. The new FM runs on Android 2.2 and later devices and as usual it doesn’t need the higher end hardware in order to play it well. 14 countries and leagues are available, full control of player transfers and training are included. There’s also the live selection of tactics and team management during match days, plus player comparison tools.

Broken Sword II – The Smoking Mirror is a long awaited remake of an adventure title from the 1990s. This game has been re-released thanks to Revolution Software and coincidentally enough, the story refers to the end of the world in 2012, as predicted by the Mayans. Broken Sword II is a 2D adventure, that is played from a third person view and it relies on a point and click interface. The protagonist is named George Stobbart and he works with Nicole Collard, another major playable character. The players can collect objects, used in puzzles, solve quests and start dialogs with other characters using conversation trees. The remastered version of Broken Sword II adds some extras, like an interactive comic, plus fully animated facial expressions. Dropbox is integrated to handle cross platform gaming saving, another cool new feature.

Gameloft’s Modern Combat 4 Zero Hour is a FPS that you must play if you call yourselves Android games. At first the game was pulled from the Google Play Store because of some problems, but now it’s available without any hassle. The game uses the Havok Engine and offers you a hefty campaign of 13 single player missions, plus a ton of multiplayer mode. You can control vehicles, use drones to scout areas and kill enemies and play with a variety of shotguns, machine guns and other weapons. The cool thing is that you can customize weapons with 20,000 choices and there’s also the option to play on both sides of the barricades, with both the baddies and the counter terrorists. The main missions take about 4 hours to complete, but the multiplayer is endless and offers you gereat fun with about a dozen players. The game costs $6.99 and it takes up 2 GB of storage. It’s certainly one of the best games we’ve seen this year.

So, there you have it, Christmas is basically here and at least one or two titles on the list may be a nifty present for you this Xmas. Gameloft has had a prolific year and we’re also witnessing the ascension of remakes, with more to come in 2013. The games we loved in the 90s are back, this time with extras. Baldur’s Gate, Broken Sword, these are just the beginning…